Crew, Logs and Records — Page 106, Lesson 172

I want to walk you through the storage periods for records and documentation that operators must maintain. This is a fundamental compliance area — the Authority, meaning your national civil aviation authority, will inspect these records, and the operator is legally required to keep them for specific durations. Let's start with the general rule. Operators must ensure that all records and relevant operational and technical information for each individual flight are stored in an acceptable form, accessible to the Authority, for the periods detailed in the tables we're about to cover. "Acceptable form" means a format the Authority can review — paper or electronic, as long as it's retrievable. First, we have information used for the preparation and execution of flights. The Operational Flight Plan must be kept for 3 months. The Aeroplane Technical Log — that's the document where every defect, fuel uplift, and maintenance action is recorded — must be kept for 36 months after the last date of entry. So if the last entry was made on 1 January, that log must be available until 1 January three years later. Route-specific NOTAM briefing information, if edited by the operator, must be kept for 3 months. NOTAM stands for Notice to Airmen — these are time-critical aeronautical information bulletins. If the operator edits or highlights specific NOTAMs for a route, that edited briefing must be retained for 3 months. Mass and balance documentation — the calculation that proves the aircraft is loaded within limits — must be kept for 3 months. Special load notification, which covers dangerous goods or unusual cargo, also goes for 3 months. You can see this summarised in Figure 1.1: Retention of flight prep documentation. Now let's move to reports. The Journey Log — a separate document from the Technical Log, recording the flight's operational details — must be kept for 3 months. Flight reports for recording details of any occurrence, as prescribed in EU-OPS or any event which the Commander deems necessary to report or record — those also go for 3 months. EU-OPS is the European Union's operating rules for commercial air transport. Reports on exceedances of duty and/or reducing rest periods — if a crew member exceeded their allowed duty time or had a rest period shortened — those reports are kept for 3 months as well. Now we turn to Flight Crew Records. These are personal records for each pilot. Flight duty and rest time records must be kept for 15 months. The licence itself must be kept as long as the flight crew member is exercising the privileges of that licence for the operator — meaning if they're still flying for that company, the licence record stays on file. Conversion training and checking — when a pilot moves from one aircraft type to another — must be kept for 3 years. The Command course, including checking — that's the training to become a captain — also goes for 3 years. Recurrent training and checking — the annual or periodic refresher — 3 years. Training and checking to operate in either pilot seat — so a pilot qualified to fly from left or right seat — 3 years. Recent experience — the record proving a pilot has made the required number of takeoffs and landings in the preceding 90 days — must be kept for 15 months. Route and aerodrome competence — proving the pilot knows the specific routes and airports they fly to — 3 years. Training and qualification for specific operations, such as ETOPS — Extended-range Twin-engine Operations — or CAT II/III approaches, which are low-visibility landing procedures — 3 years. Dangerous goods training — 3 years. Figure 1.3 shows this table. Finally, Cabin Crew Records. Flight, duty and rest time — 15 months, same as for flight crew. Initial training, conversion and difference training, including checking — these records must be kept as long as the cabin crew member is employed by the operator. Recurrent training and refresher, including checking — these must be kept until 12 months after the cabin crew member has left the employ of the operator. So even after they resign or are terminated, their training records stay on file for a full year. Dangerous goods training for cabin crew — 3 years. Figure 1.4 shows the cabin crew table, and Figure 1.5 covers records for other operations personnel. The key takeaway here is that every document has a specific shelf life, and the operator must have a system to store and retrieve them for the Authority. As a pilot, you'll sign many of these documents — the Technical Log, the Journey Log, the Operational Flight Plan — and you need to know that they don't just get thrown away after the flight. They stay on file for months or years.